


Long Shadows

by orphan_account



Category: Muse
Genre: 1940s, AU, America, Crime, Detective Noir, Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1940s Jersey City: Dom Howard is a private detective with a new case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Shadows

It was six-thirty on a Friday afternoon. I had my back up against the radiator in the sitting room of my apartment and an empty bottle of whisky in my hand. A sorry sight I must have been, I know. But it was nothing out of the ordinary. Business is slow at the moment. This is a surprisingly quiet place. You know times are hard when you find yourself praying for something bad to happen. But I’m a detective. I make a living out of bad things.

The phone rang, shrill as a bird, stark against the musty, hazy silence. I yawned in the darkness, rolling my head against the bars, too lazy to be perturbed by the stinging heat against my skull. I can imagine I slung a few slurred expletives at the unwelcome noise before deciding I probably should answer the phone. I had supposed it to be my mother, asking how things were going over here in Jersey City. Don’t get me wrong, I adored her. But one is somewhat discouraged when as inebriated as I was at the present moment. This aside, I hauled myself to my stumbling feet and leered across the room.

The ringing stopped when I was just about a foot away. Sod’s law, I tell you.  So I sank down into the armchair like quicksand, inspected the whisky bottle only to remind myself that it was empty, and let it fall to the floor with a jarring _clunk_. I must have nodded off then, ‘cause when the phone rang again I rubbed my eyes and found to my horror that I was no longer having my way with a movie star. I was still in my lousy apartment. I groaned at the insidious sound of the telephone. It bored into my brain like a pile driver.  Cursing, I grabbed the phone off the receiver.

“Hello?” I grunted, my voice the texture of rust. “Who is this?”

“This is Mr. Howard, isn’t it?” A female voice cooed. “The private detective? I saw an advertisement in the newspaper.”

I cleared my throat. I hadn’t been expecting a young lady to call.

“Yes, this is him speaking.”

“Oh, good – you see, Mr. Howard, we need your help. It’s my brother’s wife. We believe she’s been murdered.”

*

The caller, as it turned out, was one Grace Bellamy – she lived on Palisade Avenue, just around the corner from my own apartment. As soon as I’d sobered up, I lifted the corner of the curtain to see that it was, in fact, broad daylight, and I packed up my things to pay her a visit. My landlord, Chris, who lived downstairs, hailed me cheerily as I passed through the hall; I gave him a small wave, not wanting to raise my grating voice in case it gave away how I’d been spending the night.

After a short walk around the block, I found myself at the address I’d jotted down over the phone, and gave a heavy knock. I checked my watch. Two o’clock. She’d said she’d be in. As I waited and waited for some kind of response, a little blue Ford rolled up to the pavement behind me; the door clicked open, and out emerged a dark-haired, fairly scrawny young man. He looked up to see me on the doorstep, and his small mouth fell open; without a word, he climbed the steps to stand beside me. He seemed edgy, put off by my presence; for some reason he didn’t seem too willing to make conversation.

“Can I help you, Mister?” I pressed. I just can’t stand those awkward silences. It feels ridiculous to act like someone’s not there.

He’d all but jumped out of his skin at my question, swinging a tremendous pair of blue eyes my way, round with fright like some forest animal. He calmed down when I repeated the question, and began to breathe like a normal person again. Thank the lord, I thought. I was worried he might have a heart attack.

“I see you’re visiting my sister,” He mumbled quietly.

“Oh,” I said. “So you’re…Matthew? Matthew Bellamy?”

He nodded. “I assume you’re the gumshoe she hired about…about Marissa.”

I frowned. Man, he seemed pretty cut up about it. I suppose that made sense. But truth be told I’d never had that much fondness for other people. It was an advantage, I guess. Made me more impersonal, more analytical. Better at my job. But it was less advantageous when it came to social interaction. I hoped I wasn’t coming off as some kind of heartless jerk.

“Yeah. I’m…I’m sorry for your loss, pal.”

“Thanks, I guess,” He muttered, kicking around a little pebble on the doorstep.  I felt a little beat up about not giving him enough sympathy, but I guess nothing I could have said would have made him feel better. One doesn’t just _get over_ losing a wife.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I interrupted. “How come Grace called me, and not you yourself?”

He looked up. Big, wide eyes. “Oh. Um, I was afraid. I didn’t fancy talking to strangers. Not after what happened to Marissa. Thought they might come after me if they heard I was looking for a detective.”

“Oh, I see.”

At long last, the door swung open, and there was Grace. The family resemblance was pretty stunning; the same blue doe-eyes, the same sleek black hair; I amused myself a little, thinking that if you put Matthew in a wig and dress you wouldn’t be able to tell the two apart. But I hid my childish smirk for the sake of good manners and headed inside.

Grace, evidently, was taking the loss of her sister-in-law much better than her brother. In the sitting room, she sipped on coffee indolently, quiet but yet somehow so strong. I could feel the determination radiating off her.  Matthew, however, seemed like a total bag of nerves, shaking constantly, flinching every time someone spoke, never taking his eyes off the window in case some lunatic with a knife passed by. Jeez, if I’d seen him the way he was now I wouldn’t have had to ask why he hadn’t called. The man was on the end of his tether.

“They’d been married for three years,” Grace cooed, holding her younger brother’s hand. “Ever since she lost her parents, we’ve been the only family she had. Such a sweet girl, really. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her.”

“There was nobody who would have had a reason to kill her?”

“No. She was so inoffensive. It was impossible.”

I noted that down, though I took it with a pinch of salt. Nobody’s completely inoffensive. You can count on there always being someone who despises you. “Alright. And if you don’t mind, would you tell me why you didn’t go to the police?”

“We did,” Grace answered firmly, looking to Matthew with a face like thunder. “But they wrote it off as just a random killing by some bum downtown who they’d never be able to track down. “

“But you can be fairly sure it was murder?”

“Absolutely.” She took a newspaper from under her arm and laid it out neatly on the table in front of me. The headlines were familiar; now that I thought about it, I’d seen this before, a couple of days ago, and not really thought about it since. I read closer now; when walking home two weeks ago from a night out, Matthew and Marissa had been accosted by some crazy knucklehead, who’d held them up with a gun and asked them for their money. And when Matthew had tried to stand up to him, they’d fired the weapon at his wife’s head. She’d died instantly, and the chicken ran off to leave Matthew with this poor dead girl.

Shot in the head, I pondered. Yeah, I reckon that was murder. No wonder the guy was so shook up. Must really mess with someone’s head to witness something like that.

“How are you two both holding up?” I asked, trying to shake the impersonal, oppressive atmosphere. It was making me uncomfortable. Matthew was making me uncomfortable. Those eyes like neon lights had latched onto me since I’d come through the door and didn’t look ready to turn away anytime soon. It made me crawl in my skin. _Poor guy, Jesus Christ. Must think everyone’s out to get him._

“I’m alright, myself,” Grace began. “Of course, what happened to Marissa is terrible, and we’re all very saddened. But it’s not affected me like it did Matty. I’ve never seen him this terrified in all my life. He’s even had to quit his job. It’s like he’s a different person.” She affectionately stroked the top of his hand with her thumb. He recoiled silently, withdrawing even further into his tightly guarded shell.

Grace turned her pair of flashlight eyes on me, too, and I thought my skin might burn.

“Mister Howard, you have to promise me you’ll find out what happened. It’s the least that can be done for Marissa now – and for my brother.”

All I could do was nod like a dumb child. There was no saying no to that.

*

I went over to Matthew’s house the next day. That morning, as I fried eggs in the kitchen downstairs, Chris had been curious to know about my new investigation; he wouldn’t stop asking questions, to the point I had to snap at him and reinstate my confidentiality policy. He never seemed to take my work seriously; to him it’s all just some big joke, a melodramatic fairytale. I sometimes wanted to tell him that my work was never as exciting, or as glamorous, as he seemed to think it was. If I rolled in the money he thought I did then I wouldn’t be living in the upstairs of his house.

I was kinda glad to get out of there. When I’m on the job I can almost pretend I have my own office, my own kitchen, my own goddamn bathroom. That I’m not in a dead-end grimy job. But the freedom of leaving the house was counterbalanced as usual by the morbid affairs I had to see to that day.

“So this was your bedroom?”

“Yes,” His shaking voice had chirped. “Yes, this was our bed. She slept on that side.” He pointed stiffly at the right side of the bed, by the window. “She’d take out a book from the study every night, and lie there next to me, reading it with the lampshade on. And every night at midnight exactly, she’d put it down and kiss me-“ He tapped his cheek. “-Right there.”

I couldn’t look him in the eyes. They were like dead man’s eyes.

There was only so much I could ask him about here in the house. I learnt about what kind of dresses she’d liked to wear, how she’d always wanted a child but been too scared of childbirth to go through with it, how sometimes in the summertime she’d dance on the lawn until dark, when she’d splay herself out on the grass and laugh at the stars. It was all very poetic, believe me. Matthew had a lot to say about her. But it wasn’t particularly relevant. Knowing exactly the grim glare of horror I would receive, I suggested we go to the scene of the crime and take a look around.

It was downtown, just off Montgomery Street, and just a few minutes’ drive away from Matthew’s own home on Newark Avenue. I’d told him he didn’t need to follow me to the exact spot. There was a diner around the corner (not the one they’d been to that night – I wasn’t _that_ insensitive) where I told him he could stay and wait for me whilst I did my snooping, but he insisted. He wanted to see it again.

I grimaced when we found that street-corner, still so eerie even in the daylight, where a faint dark stain still blazoned the paving-stones. Matt didn’t turn away from it like I’d thought he might. He stared at it, trembling, and his hands making strange, unconscious movements. Grief does strange things to people, I thought.  I simply found the stain a little disgusting, if anything.

“I’ll take a look around for evidence,” I assured him, moving over to inspect a nearby garbage can. “You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to.”

He shook his head, mute, and I groaned, fumbling around under the can. After scouring the area rigorously, I’d found nothing but a few scuffmarks on the pavement and, to my disgust, a tiny particle of bone. I’d figured these were all pretty insignificant in the long run. From the scuffmarks I could deduce nothing about where the attacker had come from, or gone; but from the bloodstain and location of the bone I could tell they had fired right from the edge of the alleyway, just as Matthew had said. In short, I knew nothing more than I had done before. Only reinforced what I already knew.

I’d positioned myself, to imagine the scene, right at the point where Matthew had said the man stood; pointing with both hands clasped together to simulate a gun. At that point, though, I had realised that Matthew was crying.

“Aw, shoot,” I put down my hands, going over to him. “I’m sorry, pal. I didn’t realise – I just get so caught up in the job sometimes. I did say you didn’t have to come here.”

“No, no-“ He mumbled through his hands, his voice wet and pained. “No, it’s my fault –“

“No it’s not. C’mon. Come here.” I put my arm around his shoulders, trying to get him to rest his head on mine. I had to get him to calm down somehow; he was frightening passers-by with his hysterics. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

Jeez, I don’t know where I signed up to be a therapist, but I went along with it anyway.

*

The next day wasn’t too conclusive either. I headed back to Montgomery Street to ask any folks if they’d seen any suspicious persons of late, but I didn’t get very far. I mostly just scared quite a few of them with my talk of murder around these parts. One woman said she thought she saw a ghost in the alleyway last Sunday, but I dismissed that claim on account of her being ninety-six and almost certainly insane. I pretended to jot it down all the same, and promise her that he ghost problem would be rectified by the end of the week.

Feeling a little bummed out I headed back to Newark Avenue, to check up on my patient if anything. As you can imagine, a little hug hadn’t really solved Matthew’s problems. When we’d spoken on the phone that morning I had barely heard his trembling voice through the receiver. I had wondered, honestly, if he might be a suicide risk, and considering calling his sister to check up on him and make sure he wasn’t alone. But she was at work, I figured. I’d have to make time to call myself.

I pulled into his driveway at around three o’clock, halting on the breaks quickly when I saw the door wide open. Stabilising the vehicle as rapidly as I could, I dashed up the garden path, slipping inside.

“Matthew?”I called urgently. “Mr Bellamy? It’s me, Dom-“

The silence was all that answered me. The room was neat and untouched, as if it had never been lived in. I checked that this was the right house. Yep, number forty-two. This was right. Where in hell was he?

“Shit,” I muttered, going through to the kitchen. “Mr Bellamy!”

I thundered upstairs, calling his name again. Though I received no answer, I eventually found him, with a sigh of relief, curled up in the covers of the double bed, awake but barely conscious of the world around him. His glazed eyes took in the form of his own frail white hands and barely registered me as I entered.

“Matthew?” I said. His eyes flickered over to me. He said nothing.

“Is everything alright, Matt? I did some more investigations on Montgomery Street today. Nothing new, I’m afraid. But I’ll keep trying.”

His mouth made a small frowning movement, and gradually he shifted himself to sit up in bed.

“Mr Howard, if you don’t find any evidence-” He began weakly.

“Oh, no, I’m sure I will at some point-“

“If you don’t find any,” He said, more sternly. “Because I’m not sure there’s any left to find – I want you to at least promise that you’ll look after me.”

I frowned. I wasn’t that sure what he meant. “I…I’ll try, Matthew. It’s not really my job, but I’ll try.”

“Good.” He murmured, and curled back in on himself like a crisp leaf in the fall, hiding his face from me.

*

There was a lot of coming and going in the next two weeks between houses. It was beginning to get exhausting, particularly regarding this new job I’d been given. Emotional support, you may have gathered, does not come naturally to me. But every other day I’d pop in to Matt’s house, bring him something to eat, sit and chat with him wherever he was currently mourning. As much as it upset him to talk about Marissa, he didn’t really have much else to say. He’d hated his job as an accountant, even if he was pretty good at it. He’d never had children. He had some friends around the country, but none that he saw all that often, and though they’d visited for the funeral, they all had places to be and had cleared off a while ago now. Marissa was pretty much his life, and now she was gone.

I asked him if he had any hobbies. He said he’d once liked to paint, but he’d been too busy to do that for years now. The next day, I decided to be generous for once, and bought him a pad of watercolour paper and a box of paints. That amused him for a while. He sat by the desk in his study and painted the sky in the evening, the view from his back garden. I’d been pleased with his progress at first – that was, until he painted in a woman lying back in the grass watching the sun go down. Laying a hand on his shoulder, I’d told him he needed to set his mind on something else. Then he’d started crying, and I didn’t know what to do.

His life, as it once was, had been completely obliterated. It was hardly recognisable as what it had been before. All he did was wander around the house like a wisp of smoke, and cry to himself and think endlessly of the woman he’d lost. I could hardly imagine the horrors he’d seen, replayed again and again inside his own head. It must have been grotesque. The only way I saw to help him was to somehow make his life feel normal again. Give him something to do, some work, and give him some time for recreation. Maybe if his life fell into some kind of rhythm, it would take his mind off Marissa.

I began by taking down the photos of her, all ten of them, from various surfaces around the house, and while not disposing of them completely I hid them in his attic in a box, under a blanket. He noticed – of _course_ he noticed – but when he realised I had done it, he calmed down, nodding, trusting that I was doing it for his own good.  Then I went out and bought a bumper book of crosswords, wordsearches, all that crap, _thunked_ it down on his desk one day.

“There,” I said, still heaving from the weight of that goddamn tome. “You do those. Keep yourself busy.”

Again, he nodded eagerly, reaching for a pen out of the little collection in a mug and scrawling away at the first page of puzzles. I can’t believe he got through them so quickly. By dinnertime, he’d cleared at least a quarter of them. The man was some kind of machine.

“Matt,” I’d said, after setting the table for the evening. “Hey, cut that out now. It’s time to eat.”

Before I’d started visiting regularly, Matt had hardly eaten anything, never mind at regular intervals. I’d laid out a new diet plan for him, with a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tonight I’d made some roast lamb for him. Well, Chris had, and I’d smuggled it back to his house and reheated it in the oven. I wasn’t much of a cook myself.

It had taken a while for him to really enjoy food again, but by now he was eating ravenously. I suppose now that he’d been reacquainted with food he’d reminded himself how hungry he’d been. He finished a long time before me, and asked politely if there was anything for dessert. I’d had to shake my head and say, no, I’m afraid not, pal. He didn’t look too disappointed, thank God. Instead he just eyed the bottle of wine I’d bought for us to share.

As soon as I’d finished my meal, I cracked it open and poured him a glass. The stuff was cheap, yeah. I didn’t really have the dough for really fancy stuff. But it did the job. Matthew, who hadn’t had anything to drink for a long, long time, was a total lightweight. Jesus Christ, after a few sips he was dizzy with the stuff, falling about the place, laughing. It was hard to believe this was the same man.

“I’d like…I’d like to thank you, Dom,” He slurred, raising an empty glass to me. Realising it was empty, he reached for the bottle and messily sloshed more into it. “Thank you for looking after me. Thank you so much.”

He gulped it down earnestly. I myself was a little tipsy, but nowhere near his level. I was an experienced drunk. “It’s nothing, really,” I mumbled. “Just doing my job.”

“But it’s not,” He insisted. “It’s not your job. You’ve done so much for me. Thank you.” He got up from his seat, lurching, and reached to pat me on the shoulder. He stumbled; I got up from my seat just in time to reach for his hand and stop him from falling. He gave a raucous laugh, and then collapsed into my shoulder, sobbing.

“Dom, I just want her back. I want her back so much.” I think that’s what he said. To be honest his voice was so disfigured I could barely make it out. I was completely bamboozled. I just tried to stand up straight whilst his body shuddered against me and his hollow voice moaned away like a dying animal, rubbing his back as if that would somehow help him.

Next thing I knew, he’d thrown his arms around my neck, pulling me close; so close I could feel the prominent bones of his ribs and hips right against mine. Holy shit, I’d thought. This is unexpected. What’s he playing at? And then – and then he smooches me. That spooked me. I was too drunk to react that fast, but as soon as I realised what was happening I pulled my face away like his lips had given me an electric shock.

I stumbled away, falling back onto the couch, my limbs feeling strange and light all of a sudden. Was that the wine? I hadn’t had that much. Maybe it was just the shock. He almost collapsed without me to press up against, and staggered forwards, leaning unsteadily on the armchair.

“What’s wrong?” he crooned, smiling, but the tears still shone on his face. “Where are you going?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re trying, but I didn’t sign up for that, Matt.”

He gestured flippantly. “Psht. So what? It’s just for fun. Just a little fun, for me and you.” Losing his balance, he spun and fell next to me on the couch. I jolted back from him as his fingers played with the fabric of my shirt, teasing each of the buttons. “C’mon. It’ll make me feel better. And I’m sure you’ll like it, too.”

I stared gormlessly as he undid the front of my shirt, running his fingers across my bare chest. A weird shudder shot through me like a bolt of lightning. I grabbed his hand, and he grabbed my shoulder, and he kissed me so hard I thought my lips might bleed. I could feel my trousers getting tighter. This was so wrong, I told myself. But it felt good, I couldn’t deny it. I think I’d already given in by the time he’d started stroking me through my pants. I only hope my tipsiness was a good enough excuse for my lack of judgement that night.

We kissed fiercely for a few more minutes before he threw off his shirt, holding my hands back over my head as he rubbed his rear enticingly against my lap. The feel of his skin against mine was mind-blowing, and his eyes, even bloodshot and glassy, were hypnotic. His hand undid my fly, and sneaked under the waistline of my briefs, taking me into his hands and jerking me roughly. I let out a low moan of pleasure, trying to keep it relatively quiet for the neighbours’ sake. They were probably trying to get to sleep right now.

“You know what I want,” He whispered in my ear. I let out another moan, nodding, and allowed him to flip us so that he was beneath me, breathing heavily, arms pulling me close. I was far too intoxicated by him to turn back now. I took off my pants, then his, and – God, the memories are fuzzy now. All I know is that not long after that I was screwing him hard. He grunted gutturally with every thrust, the couch rocking and squeaking erratically, my fingers embedded into the fabric of a cushion. His hands, meanwhile, were satisfying themselves by digging furiously into the skin of my back, drawing burning stripes across my shoulder blades that stung like hell, but I carried on until the job was done. He climaxed beneath me, writhing, tightening around me and bringing me to join him in his ecstasy.  I collapsed onto him with a smack of sweat, and passed out immediately.

When I woke up, morning had broken. It barely occurred to me at first what had happened. Then I saw him; naked, sleeping beneath me. As I rose from him, gaping, our skin parted stickily. Jesus Christ, I thought. Oh, God almighty. I’ve done it this time. He stirred in his sleep, seeing me through the veil of slumber, and reached out to stroke my ribcage delicately before going under again. Once I was sure he was asleep, I fumbled for my clothes and bolted out of the house like my feet were on fire.

*

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. He had loved Marissa so much it might’ve killed him. Why had he made a pass at me? Was he moving on, or was he just completely out of his mind? And at the same time I had to deal with the knowledge that I’d honestly enjoyed what happened last night. It was enough to make you scream, it was. I just made sure I got home before Chris was awake, scuttling upstairs as quietly as I could, and darting into bed to pretend I’d always been there. I can’t imagine Chris would be too fond of hosting a queer in his house.

I quietly slipped downstairs, Chris treating me to some toast he’d made for me himself, but I told him I wasn’t hungry. I really wasn’t. I was feeling pretty sick, to be honest. I still felt so guilty. And now my brain was tying itself in knots trying to figure out just what Matthew’s game was, what he was trying to achieve, what last night _really meant_. Every time I tried to focus on the significance of it my mind just drifted off into abstract, euphoric thoughts. I threw my pen down on my notepad, scowling, and Chris looked up from his breakfast at me curiously.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, chewing a mouthful of bacon.  “Trouble with work?”

“You can say that again,” I said bitterly. “None of this makes sense.”

He grinned. “Can I help?”

I threw him an ironical glance. He shrugged.

“Two heads are better than one, Dom.”

“But my policy-“

“To hell with your policy! You’ve lived in my house for three years. If you can’t trust me by now, then who can you trust?”

He dipped my head, sighing. “Okay, fine.” I checked my scrap of paper of Matthew Bellamy for any details that would incriminate myself, and slid it towards Chris. “There. Matthew Bellamy. His wife was killed in a seemingly random attack on a night out with him. He watched her die himself. I can’t find any other witnesses. He is obsessively in love with her, even now. But I have reason to believe that he might have been having an affair.”

“An affair?”

“Yes,” I mustered myself. “…Possibly even with another man.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Holy shit! How’d you get him to tell you that?”

I shrugged awkwardly. “He…he trusts me. A lot.”

Chris scrutinised the paper exaggeratedly, almost comically, before heaving his shoulders with a hearty laugh. “I don’t know, Dom, beats me,” He grinned, sliding the paper back down onto the desk. “I’m no expert. Maybe the guy killed her himself, I don’t know. Some crazy shit like that.”

He got up, steering his chair back under the table to wash his plate. I, however, was speechless.

“Chris, I’ve gotta go to Matt’s house, right now,” I stammered, pulling on my shoes hurriedly and thundering upstairs to get my things.

“Okay,” He called from downstairs. “Don’t be long.”

*

My car screeched into Matthew’s driveway. The door was shut this time, I noticed, as I flung myself out of the car. I rapped my knuckles sharply on the wood. No answer. I opened the letterbox.

“Matthew!” I shouted. “Matt, open the door! Open the door right now!”

Again, no answer. I knocked repeatedly, harder each time, but there was no response. Eventually I resorted to ramming the door with my shoulder. Though my first two attempts were in vain, my third dislodged the door considerably, and with a pronounced run-up my fourth had me burst through into the hall in a flurry of splinters.

The hall was dark; all the curtains were shut, all of the lights were off. I thrust my hand into my bag, reaching for a flashlight I knew I had in there somewhere, and brandished it, illuminating the empty tiles of the hallway.

“Matt!” I cried. “I’m warning you. Come here, now!”

I proceeded warily into the sitting room. There was the couch; he wasn’t on it. I went around the corner, into the kitchen, and leapt back in shock to see Matt, shuddering like a madman at the end of the room, his shaking hands clasping a shotgun.

“Don’t come any closer,” His voice wavered darkly. “Don’t you dare.”

I held up my other hand, my flashlight’s beam still on him, and I began to back away into the sitting room. He followed me, the barrel of the gun still trained on my chest, his pale eyes squinting at me.

“Matt,” I whimpered as I continued backwards into the darkened sitting room. “Matt, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-“

“You will be,” He snarled. “You will be. You come in here thinking you’ll get away with getting me drunk, getting all my secrets. Well, you won’t take me alive. Go on, call the police. I’ll blow you to pieces.”

I stumbled back as he jabbed the gun at me aggressively. I cursed as I fell onto the floor, gazing up at him, wondering how I’d been dumb enough to come here unarmed.

“I know what happened, Matt, I know about Marissa-“

“I loved her!” He cried haplessly, his voice collapsing into a sob. “I loved her so much, Dom. But she couldn’t give me what I wanted, she never could. I was so good to her for three years, and then – and then all of a sudden, these feelings come out of nowhere, and – and I didn’t deserve it, Dom, I didn’t-“

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Was all I could say.

“You’re not sorry. You’ll sell me out, and have my own sister pay you for doing it. You’re not sorry at all.”

“Matt – no, you don’t understand, I’m not going to turn you in.”

The shaking stopped a moment. His eyes glinted at me like shards of glass.

“What do you mean?”

He still didn’t put the gun down. I raised my hand higher.

“Me and you, Matt  - we could run away, get out of here. I don’t want to arrest you.”

He shook his head minutely, wide-eyed. “No. No, you don’t mean that.“

“I do, Matt. Last night – last night shook me up inside. Made me rethink things.” I motioned gently for him to lower his weapon, and he obliged, if only by a fraction. “C’mon, Matt, think about it. It wouldn’t be that hard. They’d never find us if we got out of Jersey City, changed our names. They’d never know.”

He looked down at me, those panicked eyes softening a little. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, blinking away the gentle glisten of tears.

What happened next is hard to describe. It all happened so quickly, it barely felt real.

There was a loud smash as something huge destroyed the remnants of the door I had thundered through; I heard a voice I recognised call out my name; Matt tensed and raised his gun again, but before he could do much else there was an ear-splitting bang. His gun fell, clanking emptily against the carpet. With a sickening smack he hit the floor.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him as the gray carpet started darkening, turning red around his hidden face. The long shadow cast from the doorway hung over me, unnoticed as I reached over, wanting to turn his head to the side to see the wound I knew would brandish his forehead, but it felt like I couldn’t; like some invisible wall held my fingers back from touching his body.  I saw my own fingers hover and tremble above him, in suspended movement. I did not cry. I could not do anything.

“Dom!” Chris’ voice called, and from the tone of it he sounded like he’d said it several times before without me realising it. A large arm reached over to me, grabbing me, hauling me back from the body. Still I said nothing.

“It’s okay, Dom. It’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner,” He mumbled sheepishly. I hardly heard him. I could still hear that piercing bang. “I only realised what you were doing once you were gone. I’m sorry, I’m so slow on the uptake. I wouldn’t have known where to come if you hadn’t left that goddamn piece of paper there. Thank God you did.”

He said he’d called the police, and they’d come and take the body away, and that I was safe now. He asked me if I was alright, because I looked damn stunned by the body. I told them I was fine. I was just glad to be out of the woods, was all.

“Are you sure?” He said. “You look so sad. And don’t get me wrong, of course it’s sad. It’s just I wouldn’t normally peg you for showing off your emotions. I take it you got on with the guy?”

I shook my head. “No. No, he was just another client. These things happen.”

He patted me on the back, and we went back to the house. And that night as I lay in bed I heard a bang echoing in my brain. Bad things happen, I told myself. But I was tired of making money out of bad things.

That was my last case.


End file.
